Tag Archive: 2011 Stephen King Challenge

The fourth Stephen King book I read was actually written by King’s pseudonym Richard Bachman. The book is called Blaze, and this is what the blurb says:

Clayton Blaisdell’s capers are strictly small time until he meets George Rackley. With Blaze’s brawn and George’s brains, they pull off a hundred successful cons. Then George plans the one big score every small timer dreams of: kidnapping the heir to a family fortune.

The trouble is that by the time the deal goes down, the brains of the operation has died. Or has he?

Now Blaze is running into the white hell of the Maine woods with a baby as hostage. The crime of the century just turned into a race against time…

I really enjoyed this book. I thought the main character, Blaze, was very loveable, despite kidnapping a 6 month old baby, and I liked how you could see how his mind worked through the narrative. To be honest I was more interested in the flashbacks to see how Blaze ended up where he is today, but I wanted to see how his story played out, so it only took me a few days to read. I’m not sure if it is just because it was mentioned in the ‘Full Disclosure’ at the beginning of my copy of the book, but this story reminded me a lot of John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. The main character is abnormally big and strong, and because of mental problems, can’t control their strength or know right from wrong and get into trouble because of it. I don’t think it helps that the ‘smart one’ of the team is called George in both books either XD. Although this isn’t a horror, there is a slight supernatural element that presents itself in the form of Blaze hearing advice from a dead friend. Is it just his imagination? Who knows. I liked it though.

As I am running out of things to say (in case you hadn’t noticed, writing isn’t my strong point…) I am going to end my review there. I don’t know which one I’m going to read next. I have a lot of books on my list.

The third Stephen King book I chose to read was The Dark Half. I actually read this book months ago, but for some reason or other, my blogging stopped, and I didn’t write the review. This review probably won’t be very long, as I have read a lot of other books since, and can’t remember everything that happened. This is what the blurb says.

Thad Beaumont is a writer. In the not-too-distant past the literary press was full of critical acclaim for his work. Then he hit a period of difficulty with his writing, and he invented George Stark. At first, Stark was a bit of fun, a pseudonym, complete with sinister author biography, under which Thad could create violent and commercial thrillers. But the thrillers became bestsellers and soon Stark was earning far more money than Beaumont, and Beaumont was creating nothing at all.

But now Thad is feeling better. The father of infant twins, he’s beginning to write for himself again. He no longer needs George Stark, and somehow relieved that the game is over, he announces that Stark will write no more. He even “buries” him, with a specially made headstone, for a magazine photo-feature.

Which is all very funny and a happy ending to a lucrative but strange period in the life of Thad and Liz Beaumont. Except for one thing. George Stark doesn’t want to die. Impossibly, terrifyingly, in an orgy of violence, he appears to have returned – a killing machine intent on destroying anything and everything that stands between him and the man who created him…

Despite the best part of this book being right at the beginning in the prologue when Thad has an eyeball removed from his brain, I enjoyed reading this book. The character of George Stark is very brutal with the way he kills (gory deaths are always more fun in my books) and I like the mystery and supernatural elements of the plot. I also liked how the sparrows appear from beginning to end and their final role is quite creepy (I won’t tell you what they do, you’ll have to read that for yourself). Since reading the book I watched the film, which again the best bit was right at the beginning. I thought the book was better than the film, it went on a bit long and I recall my boyfriend fell asleep about half way through.

Sorry for the kind of lame review. My review of Blaze should (hopefully) be better as I only read it last week. It’s a bit fresher in the mind :).

The second Stephen King book I chose to read was The Eyes of the Dragon. I started reading this a few years ago for a sponsored reading challenge I was trying to do. I think I was probably a bit young to appreciate Stephen King’s writing, so I didn’t actually make it past a third of the way in. Now that I am older, and have read and loved a few of his other books, I decided I would give it another try. This is what the blurb says:

The passage through the castle is dim and deep, sensed by few and walked by only one. Flagg knows it well. In four hundred years he has walked it many times, in many guises, but now the passage serves its true purpose. Through the spyhole it conceals, the court magician observes King Roland. The king is old and weak, yet still a king. But his time is nearly over.

Young Prince Peter, tall and handsome, the measure of a king in all ways, stands to inherit the realm. But a tiny mouse is enough to bring him down, a mouse that chanced upon a grain of Dragon Sand behind Peter’s shelves and dies crying tears of fire and belching grey smoke. A mouse that dies as King Roland does. Flagg saw it all and smiled, for now Prince Thomas, a young boy easily swayed to Flagg’s own purposes, would rule the kingdom. But Thomas has a secret that even Flagg cannot guess, a secret that has turned his days into nightmares and his nights into prayed-for oblivion. The last bastion of hope lies at the top of the needle, the royal prison where Peter plans a daring escape.

Imprisoned in innocence, he requires only the most innocent of tools: a child’s dollhouse and an object rarely used in Delain, a table napkin. But Flagg’s words echo in Peter’s mind: ‘I’ll carry your head on my saddle-horn for a thousand years. Here I come, Peter! Coming for your head!’

I really enjoyed reading this book. It isn’t like any of the others of his books I have read. Instead of his classic horror genres, this book is more like a modern, grown-up twist on a fairytale. I really liked the characters, and although it didn’t seem like a whole lot was happening at the time, as I was reading it, I found I couldn’t put it down, I just wanted to know more. The version I have has really nice pictures in it too, which is always a bonus. It didn’t take me very long to read it. In fact, it has taken me longer to write this review, and I am almost halfway through the next book! Never mind.

All in all I thought this was a great book, and I am really glad I decided to give it another shot. It was totally worth reading and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to try out Stephen King, but doesn’t want to be completely freaked out. Or am I just scared too easily?